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First time buyers.

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Hi good morning.

Myself and my partner, are looking to buy our first property.

We earn £30,000 per year between us and currently reside in Exeter in a rented property do you have any advice on our first buy?

We've been to the bank and they'll give us a mortgage of £95,000.

Please any helpful tips/advice would be really appreciated on what we should avoid.
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Comments

  • foxy-stoat
    foxy-stoat Posts: 6,879 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Buy what you can afford, try and aim for maximum 90% LTV mortgage.

    Avoid flats and new builds if you can.
  • Niklas33
    Niklas33 Posts: 173 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Sadly around here, we'd be lucky to get a flat for £100,000.

    That's all we can get even moving further afield to places such as Dawlish/Starcross.
  • foxy-stoat
    foxy-stoat Posts: 6,879 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Whats the cheapest house being advertised for? Maybe save up a bit longer for a larger deposit to get you into a house.
  • Niklas33
    Niklas33 Posts: 173 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    £170,000

    For a one bedroom house.
  • GoingOn30
    GoingOn30 Posts: 231 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper
    You will struggle on those incomes to afford anything in or near Exeter.
    What are the prospects of your earnings increasing over the next couple of years?
    You will likely need to save a deposit in the region of £20,000-£30,000
  • Niklas33
    Niklas33 Posts: 173 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    We're happy to settle for a decent flat, and happy to move further south if required.

    I'm a recent graduate and my starting salary at the minute is £18,000 and my partner works in retail for minimum wage and earns £12/13,000 per year.
  • foxy-stoat
    foxy-stoat Posts: 6,879 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    How much deposit have you saved so far?
  • Niklas33
    Niklas33 Posts: 173 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    £5500

    So far we put the money into a Help to Buy ISA.

    We've decided to do it now due to the rent on our flat at the minute being increased a ridiculous amount, and nowhere within 10 miles is cheaper and for us a mortgage would be 40 percent cheaper (according to calculations online)

    With us having both to commute into Exeter everyday for work from Dawlish/Teignmouth etc would be far cheaper for us than continue paying an increased rent.
  • Niklas33
    Niklas33 Posts: 173 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    We've been approved by Help to Buy south west, but we've found the service to be less than helpful and don't really know if Shared Ownership would be an option for us.
  • Me and my husband earn around £32k a year total. We!!!8217;re buying a new build with the help to buy scheme, our property is worth £135k, our deposit is 6,751 with government putting in 20% and the mortgage is 101k roughly.... we!!!8217;re in the north east so house prices are cheaper here but could you look into the help to buy scheme?
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